I just spent five days in the Toronto area, where I met about 100 second cousins I never had before. It was a glorious time. At the U. S. consulate in Toronto I saw a plaque commemorating the events of 9/11/2001. The last line of the inscription plaque stated that the Canadians were very fortunate to have the best neighbors in the world, meaning us.

The Canadians are right, and I would never want to live in any other country. However, there are things about Canada which we Americans should admire and to which we could aspsire. These include:

Welcoming immigrants and having great tolerance for a multitude of different peoples

A bi-lingual country where there is no insistence that one language prevail over the other

Universal good quality health care guaranteed by the government

A middle class that is moving up and confident in its future successes

No capital punishment and a low rate of violent crime

Massive job-creating investment in infrastructure and development of new sources of energy

Politicians who may disagree but who still get things done

Government support of all schools: public, private and religious [this last one could not happen here due to separation of church and state]

A population that shuns gun ownership

The best beers on the planet

The USA is the greatest country in the world. Yet, we could learn much from other democratic societies. Canada is one of them.

I was born on December 11, 1939 into an immigrant Italian household in Tacoma, Washington. World War II was in its first weeks. Hitler was running wild in Europe. Italy, his willing partner. Japan made noise China and the Pacific.On December 7, 1941, the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor. On my second birthday, four days later, Germany and Italy, my family’s native homeland, declared war on the United States. My grandparents had to declare themselves as ”enemy aliens,” despite the fact that they sent three sons to defend our country and possibly fight against their Italian cousins. At 73, I have lived a fairly long time. I muse over some of the terrible things that have happened just in my lifetime. A war that killed 55 million civilians and military combatants; the use of nuclear weapons that destroyed whole cities; genocide by the Nazis; the Communist Chinese and Soviets killing millions of their citizens through force and starvation; a world where bloody conflict was taking place every day since the day I was born; the indiscriminate use of the death penalty in places like China and Iran and, to a lesser degree, the United States also; the massacre of innocents by governments and rebels in places like Rwanda and Bosnia; madmen who have had access to firearms killing children and other innocents; governmental and religious killings in the 21st century in Syria, Angola, Afghanistan, and other places; a wave of terrorism by religious fanatics, which led to the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans on September 11, 2001; continued hatred among peoples of different colors.In the sixties there was a song that had a line, “When will they ever learn….” Not in my lifetime. And now we have witnessed the birth of the future King, George VII, in England. With normal life expectancies, he will rule into the 22nd Century. By the end of his rule, I wonder if they still have never learned.